Welcome back to our series of brief conversations and blog posts exploring the notion of wisdom in the 2020s!
Hosted by the Primrose Hill Golden Civilisation Conversation community, we have taken the following motif to guide our exploration:
‘What might we ask most of our wisdom in these challenging times? As individuals, as families, as communities, as organisations, as society more broadly?’
Please join Tim Heath exploring the ‘Wisdom and Possibility of the Dissenting Imagination’ – the fourth in our series, following Alison Hogan’s and Adam Wells’ conversations on the notion of liminal space.
Chair of the Blake Society, Tim draws mesmerisingly on the work and philosophy of William Blake (1757 -1827) – and broader culture (including cricket!), art and literature- to explore the spirit, nurturing and value of a dissenting imagination. This is such an important topic at a time of heightening consciousness, with humanity now seeming to expand its sense of what is needed, what is right and wrong, what is missing, and what is possible.
Tim offers perspectives on both principle and practice:
The importance of a dissenting imagination in freeing us from the frameworks, constraints and ways of thinking that surround us in our institutions and broader society
The art of ‘seeing, not with the eye, but through the eye’ beyond what is constrained, circumscribed and limiting
‘The point of great voyages of discovery is not to see great vistas but to return with new eyes’ (adapted from Marcel Proust)
The power of holding, colliding and ‘marrying together’ contraries in the creative, imaginative mind, forcing oneself to escape a bipolar position and find other, often extraordinary solutions
‘Art does not represent the world, art enables us to see the world’ (Paul Klee) – seeing through the eye, not with the eye
Orienting ourselves to all the small decisions we make day to day – being conscious of these through our actions and especially through our inaction, what we choose not to do, not to think, not to see.
Thank you very much indeed Tim – a real pleasure to stand for a time with your own dissenting imagination! Please do connect with Tim at 'Tim Heath' tim@ioi.org.uk
All best wishes to all who are listening and reading – and please take care.